My ancient (and sometimes controversial) dark red dictionary defines eccentric as 'deviating from the centre, departing from the usual practice'. A recent programme by Victoria C.M. on eccentricity enforced this idea, with examples through recent times to illustrate the point. An eccentric is someone who goes against the norm, rails against the establishment, a goat amongst sheep.
When I was growing up (back when Noah was a lad), most people lived in rented accommodation; it was unusual for women to have a full time job; the only parts of a body to be pierced were ears (and that was considered a bit common) and tattoos only sported by sailors. Vegetarianism was ridiculed and allotments were for old men in baggy hats.
Now it seems everyone aspires to a mortgage and their own patch of land on which to grow their healthy, heritage variety, organic fruit and veg. Piercings can be had almost anywhere one might want and tattoos are so common that fake ones (like long gloves) can be used just for the week-end. No-one need feel excluded.
So what now defines an eccentric?
Could it be a stay-at-home parent, with unadorned skin who does not enjoy reality television? Someone who enjoys cooking but has no desire to enter 'Bake Off'
and travels happily on public transport with no regrets for the lack of an expensive car to maintain?
I was reading an article today about 60 plus's, the largest growing social group who have more money and more time to enjoy it, doing things they always wanted to do without fear of censure.
Perhaps these are the new eccentrics.
Saturday 21 November 2015
Thursday 16 July 2015
There is nothing more evocative than a tantalizing, almost ephemeral scent of......something. A place, a time flits across the inner eye and we are a younger version of our present self.
The privet is just coming in to flower, its ice cream coloured, Christmas tree sprays of trumpet-shaped blooms filling the air with memories. When I was growing up, every terraced house was fronted with a low wall topped with railings, behind which unruly hedges of hardy privet bullied their way towards the pavement. Hedge shears were borrowed between neighbours, but not often. It was a job done reluctantly at the end of the summer holidays, sometimes for bob-a-job week. It was scary, struggling to wield the stiff, sometimes blunt over-sized scissors, balancing between the bay window, the airy (the barred, gaping hole over the cellar) and the sturdy hedge. Then, trimming achieved, there was still the tidying up, brushing the bits in to a bucket before being emptied in to the dust bin which lived in the back yard. Several journeys had to be made, back and forth round the houses and along the entry to the back gate, wedged ajar with the metal bin and its clanging lid.
The entry was a playground in itself. A narrow, straight space to practise roller-skating, arms spread out to touch blackened walls, desperate to stay upright (I failed - any kind of skating seemed beyond me). Its deep doorways were common hiding places in hide-and-seek as they were often draped with trailing ivy, sometimes crawling with thick, dark, hairy caterpillars. An absence of grown-ups in this 'behind' space, meant it was ideal as a race track. One friend had a faded pink pedal-car, so of course it was adopted by all, to be used by all, all at the same time. Some pushed, some pulled, the rest climbed in and on, until little pinkness was visible. The inevitable shouting, laughter and enthusiasm usually ended in tears, arguments and scabby knees.
Do children today still compare scabby knees in the playground? Do dark hairy caterpillars still inhabit curtains of ivy? There are lots of black and yellow stripy ones eating their way through my nasturtiums
and a huge black and yellow dragonfly spent two days zooming round the garden.
Little privet though and no bob-a-job. Hedges are now mostly beech, escallonia, leylandii, berberis and tidied regularly by adults with electric machines. No longer scary.
Sign of the times, I guess.
ps Have discovered my caterpillars are from the boring cabbage white butterfly and I suspect the dragonfly is similarly common - but who cares.
This bee was found on the ground - might be sleeping, maybe dead?
The privet is just coming in to flower, its ice cream coloured, Christmas tree sprays of trumpet-shaped blooms filling the air with memories. When I was growing up, every terraced house was fronted with a low wall topped with railings, behind which unruly hedges of hardy privet bullied their way towards the pavement. Hedge shears were borrowed between neighbours, but not often. It was a job done reluctantly at the end of the summer holidays, sometimes for bob-a-job week. It was scary, struggling to wield the stiff, sometimes blunt over-sized scissors, balancing between the bay window, the airy (the barred, gaping hole over the cellar) and the sturdy hedge. Then, trimming achieved, there was still the tidying up, brushing the bits in to a bucket before being emptied in to the dust bin which lived in the back yard. Several journeys had to be made, back and forth round the houses and along the entry to the back gate, wedged ajar with the metal bin and its clanging lid.
The entry was a playground in itself. A narrow, straight space to practise roller-skating, arms spread out to touch blackened walls, desperate to stay upright (I failed - any kind of skating seemed beyond me). Its deep doorways were common hiding places in hide-and-seek as they were often draped with trailing ivy, sometimes crawling with thick, dark, hairy caterpillars. An absence of grown-ups in this 'behind' space, meant it was ideal as a race track. One friend had a faded pink pedal-car, so of course it was adopted by all, to be used by all, all at the same time. Some pushed, some pulled, the rest climbed in and on, until little pinkness was visible. The inevitable shouting, laughter and enthusiasm usually ended in tears, arguments and scabby knees.
Do children today still compare scabby knees in the playground? Do dark hairy caterpillars still inhabit curtains of ivy? There are lots of black and yellow stripy ones eating their way through my nasturtiums
and a huge black and yellow dragonfly spent two days zooming round the garden.
Little privet though and no bob-a-job. Hedges are now mostly beech, escallonia, leylandii, berberis and tidied regularly by adults with electric machines. No longer scary.
Sign of the times, I guess.
ps Have discovered my caterpillars are from the boring cabbage white butterfly and I suspect the dragonfly is similarly common - but who cares.
This bee was found on the ground - might be sleeping, maybe dead?
Or perhaps it just fell out of the hive.
Saturday 28 February 2015
echoes past
You know when something goes round and round your mind and you can not shake it off? Like a tune, or a conversation (usually one that ended badly and needs a better conclusion)? Well, odd phrases, quotes, comments typical of those I have known have been buzzing around my head for some time now.
Example - The wreck of the Hesperus (as in 'you look like...').
Sans hair, sans eyes, sans teeth. (I thought maybe this was some mangled French from the war years, but no....)
In eighteen hundred and forty one, the American railway was begun... (something we sang as a family, but no idea when this great enterprise started.)
De loo (as in de luxe, describing those very thin, disc-like mint imperials, not the lavatory..)
One go, two stop, three full up. (Now who admits to being old enough to recognise this reference?)
My well-read offspring have provided some answers, tinternet others.
The wreck is a quote from Longfellow.
Sans hair etc is also a quote, Shakespeare, of course. As You Like It, the 'All the world's a stage...' speech.
The song about the railway was a folk song recorded some time between 1938 and 1942.
I realize now my parents were both well read and up to date with sing-a-long songs. I would be hard put to recognise any current songs and the only bit of poetry I remember from school is -
Macavity's a mystery cat,
He' called the Hidden Paw
For he's the master criminal who can defy the law.
He..... (and I've forgotten the rest).
I had also forgotten that it is by T. S. Elliot (offspring to the rescue again).
They say education is not what it used to be, but perhaps it is, now. It just missed a generation (mine) and left it the poorer.
Oh, and the last one is bus bells!
Example - The wreck of the Hesperus (as in 'you look like...').
Sans hair, sans eyes, sans teeth. (I thought maybe this was some mangled French from the war years, but no....)
In eighteen hundred and forty one, the American railway was begun... (something we sang as a family, but no idea when this great enterprise started.)
De loo (as in de luxe, describing those very thin, disc-like mint imperials, not the lavatory..)
One go, two stop, three full up. (Now who admits to being old enough to recognise this reference?)
My well-read offspring have provided some answers, tinternet others.
The wreck is a quote from Longfellow.
Sans hair etc is also a quote, Shakespeare, of course. As You Like It, the 'All the world's a stage...' speech.
The song about the railway was a folk song recorded some time between 1938 and 1942.
I realize now my parents were both well read and up to date with sing-a-long songs. I would be hard put to recognise any current songs and the only bit of poetry I remember from school is -
Macavity's a mystery cat,
He' called the Hidden Paw
For he's the master criminal who can defy the law.
He..... (and I've forgotten the rest).
I had also forgotten that it is by T. S. Elliot (offspring to the rescue again).
They say education is not what it used to be, but perhaps it is, now. It just missed a generation (mine) and left it the poorer.
Oh, and the last one is bus bells!
Saturday 3 January 2015
turning of the year...
New year, new diary so all the important info has to be transferred - birthdays, anniversaries, dental appointments.......... But it is also an opportunity to relive the notes made of the outside world. When plants began to grow, bear fruit then die back. When various wildlife visited the garden and what the weather was like. I am tempted to say this past year was unusual but only because we seemed to have the right weather for the time of year. Wet, bright spring, windy in March ('in like a lion...'). Mild, then a warm summer. Autumn that almost forgot to happen until late October when the colours were glorious and the fungi amazing. Then snow, not Christmas, but Boxing Day, when everyone was leaving after a fun, family day.
The daffodils are springing up around the garden and the honeysuckle has buds - there will be a few more frosts before spring pushes winter out of the way, but in the meantime, here are some reminders of autumn.
(these are butterflies, not fungi!)
And when we got home, I found these (earthstars, I think) sprouting up under the salvias......
(made me think of cabbagepatch kids, remember those....?)
The daffodils are springing up around the garden and the honeysuckle has buds - there will be a few more frosts before spring pushes winter out of the way, but in the meantime, here are some reminders of autumn.
(these are butterflies, not fungi!)
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